At Blue Cottage Porch, we take pumpkins seriously. We inspect their color, their condition, their stem situation, and, perhaps most importantly, their shape. Because not all pumpkins bring the same energy to a porch.

In most places, fall porch decorating begins when the air turns crisp. In Houston, it begins when we are emotionally ready for fall—even if the afternoon forecast is still making us question whether October received the memo. That does not mean your porch cannot look beautifully autumnal. It just means Houston gardeners and porch decorators need to be a little strategic. The best fall plants for our area are the ones that either tolerate early-season warmth or wai

Happy National Dessert Day. At Blue Cottage Porch, we are firmly in the business of pumpkins on porches. We love the big orange ones, the pale white ones, the bumpy ones, the Cinderella pumpkins with their beautiful curves, and the tiny gourds that somehow make every display look more interesting. But every fall, pumpkins take on another important role: dessert.

Walk into a fall market and you will see them everywhere: orange pumpkins, white pumpkins, blue-gray pumpkins, tiny striped things, warty things, long-necked things, and at least one vegetable that looks like it escaped from a very stylish alien planet.

You have the pumpkins. The porch is glowing. The hay bales are stacked just right, the specialty pumpkins have their best stems facing forward, and for a few weeks each fall, your front door becomes everyone’s favorite backdrop. Now you need the photo.

When people compare pumpkin porch packages, the first thing they naturally notice is size. A larger package means more pumpkins. More pumpkins mean a fuller porch, more color along the walkway, and more of that wonderful “fall has officially arrived here” feeling. But there is another important difference, too: larger displays give us room to use more specialty varieties. That is where a pretty pumpkin porch becomes a truly memorable one.

Pumpkins are pretty ordinary, right? They grow on vines, turn orange, become pies and spend October sitting on porches. Except pumpkins are actually quite strange. They're fruits we treat like vegetables. They're mostly water but can weigh more than a small car. They grow almost everywhere on Earth, and parts of the plant most of us throw away—or never even notice—are perfectly edible. So in honor of one of our favorite fall decorations, here are some pumpkin facts t

Houston fall is lovely. It is also not always what the rest of the country would call “fall.” While friends in Nebraska may already be reaching for jackets, we can still be enjoying warm afternoons, sunshine, humidity, and the occasional surprise rainstorm. So it is a perfectly fair question: Can pumpkins actually survive Houston heat? The short answer is yes—with a little smart placement and care. At Blue Cottage Porch, we bring pumpkins down from ...

For generations, the apple has been practically part of the teacher uniform. Books, pencils, chalkboards—and a shiny red apple sitting on the desk. But with fall in full swing and pumpkins everywhere, we think it may be time to give the apple a little seasonal competition. In honor of World Teachers’ Day, we’re making the case for a new fall tradition: give the teacher a pumpkin.

Long before glowing pumpkins lined American porches, the lantern belonged to a ghost. His name was Jack, and according to an old Irish legend, neither Heaven nor Hell wanted him.Today, a jack-o’-lantern might be silly, spooky or impressively elaborate. But the folklore behind that familiar glowing face is considerably darker. The tale of Stingy Jack involves the Devil, a series of tricks, a bargain that goes terribly wrong and a lonely spirit condemned to wander the darkness

There is absolutely nothing wrong with triangle eyes, a triangle nose and a toothy grin. They’ve served us well for generations. But somewhere along the way, people realized that a pumpkin is essentially a large orange blank canvas, and things got considerably more interesting.If you’re carving pumpkins this year, consider this your permission to abandon tradition. Your jack-o’-lantern can be creepy, ridiculous, elaborate, barely carved at all, or something that makes the nei

Give a pumpkin seed some moisture, warmth and a little bit of something resembling soil, and it may decide that's good enough. Gardeners call plants that appear without intentionally being planted volunteers, and pumpkins are particularly enthusiastic volunteers.

There are perfectly respectable pumpkin names. Autumn Crown. Crystal Star. Magic Lantern. Porcelain Doll. And then, somewhere along the way, pumpkin breeders apparently decided that dignity was optional.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with one beautiful pumpkin by the front door.It says, “Hello, fall. We see you.”But a group of pumpkins says something a little different:“Fall has officially moved in.”That is the magic of more than one pumpkin. A single pumpkin is a decoration. A collection of pumpkins becomes a display.Pumpkins Look Better TogetherThe prettiest porch displays are rarely built around one giant, perfect pumpkin sitting politely by itself. They work because o

The surprisingly creepy history of jack-o'-lanterns, a man who outsmarted the Devil, and the vegetable that started it all.Every October, millions of Americans enthusiastically scoop slimy guts out of pumpkins, carve faces into them, stick candles inside, and proudly display them on their front porches. It's one of our most beloved Halloween traditions, but have you ever wondered why we do it?As it turns out, the history of jack-o'-lanterns involves ancient Celtic traditions,

Every fall, millions of Americans head to pumpkin patches to find the perfect pumpkin. Some carve them into jack-o'-lanterns, others turn them into pies, and plenty arrange them beautifully on their front porches. Then there are the people who look at a perfectly good pumpkin and wonder, "How far do you think we could launch that thing?" Welcome to the world of pumpkin chucking, also known as punkin chunkin, where engineering meets agricultural entertainment and pumpkins a

Somewhere in America, a grown adult is measuring a pumpkin, checking its weight gain, adjusting its blanket, and worrying that the competition might have better genetics. Welcome to the surprisingly intense world of competitive giant pumpkin growing, where backyard gardeners become amateur scientists, pumpkins can weigh more than a small car, and an entire growing season can come down to a few pounds on the scale. These aren't your average Halloween pumpkins. They're enor

Some pumpkins belong in pies. Others are better suited to sitting on your porch looking fabulous. Every fall, we fill our porches with pumpkins of every shape, size, and color. But here's a question you might have wondered while admiring your fall decorations: Can you actually eat all these pumpkins? The short answer is that most true pumpkins are edible. The better question is whether you'd actually want to eat them.

Pumpkin MythBusters: 10 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About Pumpkins

We thought pumpkins were for porches.Maybe pie.Maybe carving.Possibly launching from a catapult if you're feeling adventurous.But racing?Oh yes. People race pumpkins. And we have questions.There are several variations of pumpkin racing, but they generally fall into two delightfully ridiculous categories:Pumpkin racing on land and pumpkin racing on water.Pumpkin Racing on the RoadLand-based pumpkin races come in several forms.One popular version involves turning pumpkins into